Prothean

The Protheans are an extinct race in Mass Effect that existed 50,000 years prior to the events of the series.

Organization

The Prothean civilization was a Roman-style empire, with the Protheans ruling an unspecified number of subject races. The center of Prothean government was the Citadel space station.

History

At one time the Protheans dominated the galaxy, only to be eradicated by the Reapers upon their return through the Citadel, which was actually a mass relay. The Reapers used the Protheans to create the Collectors. A small Prothean research team survived the genocide, and once the Reapers left they returned to the Citadel, sabotaging it to make it more difficult to bring back the Reaper fleet. This gave the next generation of spacefaring races the chance to delay the Reaper invasion rather than being taken completely by surprise.

The Reapers hid all traces of their involvement in the Prothean downfall, leading the later spacefaring races to assume that it was the Protheans who built the Citadel and the mass relay system. In reality the Reapers built them and the Protheans simply found them.

Threat Assessment

The Protheans are assumed to have had a higher level of technology than the current Council races, and presumably they controlled the whole galaxy. Little else is known about their capabilities.